Some Remarks on Economic Policy Advice

Once the oracle at Apollo's shrine in Delphi had been pronounced by one of the three holy priests, it had to be transformed into hexameters before it could be promulgated. The oracles until today are subject to interpretation. They always come to pass when interpreted with hindsight, but the person, who had requested an advice, often richly donating to the shrine, was all too frequently left clueless as to what to make of the advice. It is the same today with economists consulting on economic policy. Instead of hexameters, the advice has to be put into the form of formally consistent models. In this way, the pronouncements are always correct - they just cannot be wrong. But the policy maker is all too often left without a clue as to what to do.